Parents, Educators Make New Connection With the Internet

While parents of an earlier time expressed their views about the
local schools in the ballot box or by picking up the telephone, today's
parents have a powerful new weapon: the Internet.

In Wauwatosa, Wis., in Palo Alto, Calif., and dozens of other school
districts, parents are using the massive computer network to dig for
data, shape public opinion, forge alliances, broadcast information, and
tap expertise from beyond the local community.

For these citizens, often from upscale communities, the utility of
the Internet goes much further than the cafeteria menus, messages from
the superintendent, and sports and meeting schedules featured on most
school sites on the World Wide Web.

Some school officials worry, however, that the use of the Internet
could distort their communication with the public because Internet
users are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of the affluent.
That, they say, can exclude those who can't afford computers or
Internet access.

Web sites can also conceal the real dimensions of a group's
strength, said Liz Whitaker, the technology coordinator of the Tucson,
Ariz., schools, where a local group has a Web site that is critical of
the district's curriculum. "You can't tell when you look at a home page
if there are 1,000 people behind it or one," she said.

Unofficially Yours

Educators who envision a Web site as an ideal electronic brochure
for their school or district may be surprised to find competing titles
appearing. A Texas parent, for example, runs the Unofficial Plano
Independent School District site, which rivals the district's official
information outlets in quality and thoroughness.

Tim Williams, a Plano medical-equipment salesman with two children
in public schools, said he and a few parents set up the site last year
to oppose a trio of school bond proposals they believed were excessive
and poorly explained.

The local newspaper gave few details of the complex proposals, Mr.
Williams said, and the only other way to get the information was to
drive to the district office and pay for photocopying. So he put the
full text of the plans on the Web.

The bonds passed. But he interpreted the 1,000-plus visits that his
Web site received as a vote of confidence and decided to maintain it
with an expanded mission.

Mr. Williams says his site offers local parents the only independent
view of the Plano district's management and performance.

He posts information sent to him by teachers and parents and
district data that is not offered on the official Web site--including
budget information and state school accountability ratings. He
dispenses his own opinions about the district and its officials, but he
said he keeps opinion separate from data.

His site offers links to other relevant Web sites, including the
district's official home page--a courtesy not returned at the district
site.

Mary Gorden, a communication specialist with the Plano district,
said its official Web site provides a wide variety of information and
that it has been well-received by local parents. Though she did not
comment directly on the alternative site, she said the district objects
to Mr. Williams' use of its official emblem.

"Our feeling is that this is an inappropriate use of our trademarked
logo," Ms. Gorden said.

E-mail Fencepost

In Wilmette, Ill., parents stay on top of developments and issues in
District 39 through a "listserv," a computer system that automatically
routes e-mail messages to a list of subscribers.

Roger Weissburg, a parent and university professor, set up the list
in March 1996 after convincing the 3,300-student district's community
review committee, of which he was co-chairman, of the need for creative
solutions to engage parents.

Shortly after the listserv started, contract negotiations between
the district's teachers and the school board reached an impasse, and
the computer system became a fencepost and sounding board for the
latest developments.

Parents sent e-mail messages asking about the issues in dispute and
trying to get a read on whether teachers would strike. Teacher
representatives and two school board members used the forum to air
their personal opinions and set the factual record straight.

At the dispute's critical phase, subscribers learned the
outcome--the teachers voted against striking--15 minutes before the
local parent-teacher organization's telephone chain began spreading the
news, Mr. Weissburg said.

That minor triumph was clouded by some hurt feelings among users of
the list. Mr. Weissburg acknowledges that some parents stopped
participating because "four or five very bright, critical people" sent
scathing messages about other people who were expressing their
opinions. "Unless you have a tough skin, that shuts you up," he
said.

Overall, though, Mr. Weissburg said the system worked. Parents asked
"good, solid, probing questions, and sometimes made assertions that
could be corrected when they were way off base."

Mr. Weissburg acknowledges, however, that it isn't perfect.

One problem is the small number of parents involved. Participation
has never been large--generally about 160.

Another factor is the reluctance of school administrators to use the
communication tool. "The district was very concerned with equity and
access and did not want to make this an official mode of
communication," Mr. Weissburg said.

The school board president, John Relias, told the Chicago
Tribune last fall that the listserv contributed nothing to
resolving the dispute with teachers.

Since the labor trouble blew over, the listserv has been used to
discuss issues such as spending and teaching methods, though it has
sometimes lapsed into silence.

Putting on the Pressure

Other Web sites seek to pressure school districts to change their
teaching methods, spending priorities, or other policies. The groups
behind these sites often go by acronyms that speak volumes--such as
HOLD, PUSH, and PRESS.

Their sites link to one another, allowing them to share supporters
and mobilize resources nationally and even internationally. Some sites
offer push-button petitions and instant letters to state legislators
that Internet passersby can fill out.

Leah Vukmir, the president of PRESS--for Parents Raising Educational
Standards in Schools--in Wauwatosa, Wis., said she has received e-mail
from people in 40 states and was stunned to receive a check from a math
professor in Switzerland who had seen the group's Web site.

HOLD, in Palo Alto, stands for "Honest Open Logical Debate on
Curricular Reform" and seeks to influence the teaching of mathematics
and reading in the Palo Alto district.

HOLD's Web site is a one-stop shop for academic research and
newspaper articles that support its view that recent curricular reforms
have been misguided. HOLD has united with start-up groups in other
communities to campaign at the state level over academic content and
performance standards.

Bill Evers, a member of HOLD's steering committee, said the Internet
has been a valuable tool for compiling and presenting information. "One
of the values in our group is that educational reform should be based
on the best scientific research," he said.

Another Web site, run by Mathematically Correct, which squares off
against the school administration in San Diego, offers a complete
alternative set of K-12 math standards that can be downloaded.

Mr. Evers said these groups use the Internet to share intelligence
about the opposition. The sites also allow cross-fertilization with
other cyberspace discussions, allowing parents, for example, to hook up
with university math professors who are critical of the latest math
trends.

But having a loud Web presence doesn't mean that HOLD has achieved
its objectives. The group, which claims about 1,000 supporters, has
packed school board meetings and made inroads in winning support of the
administration over the past two years. But it has been frustrated by
opposition from teachers and by the slow pace of change in the
9,100-student district.

Barbara Liddell, Palo Alto's acting superintendent, said the
district places little value on the opinions of the remote or
theoretical communities in cyberspace. And local residents, whose
opinions matter most, she said, are best reached through televised
board meetings and newsletters.

"We're not interested in the larger community [on the Web]; they
don't influence our decisionmaking," she said.

Even so, Mr. Evers said, the Web site has proved valuable.

"One of the great pooling effects of the Internet is that scattered
people who don't know each other can exchange information with
facility," he added. "We gain from work other people have done."

Strong
Families, Strong Schools. This ambitious Web site from the ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban
Education provides a review of the past 30 years of key research
findings on the importance of involving families in their children's
learning, examples of family involvement efforts that are working, and
concrete ways in which different participants in the family involvement
partnership can help achieve success.